Solar Energy Projects
DIY Solar Energy Projects
More people than ever these days are interested in solar energy, but not everyone wants to go out and hire a company to install their panels for themselves. Many people these days are interested in solar energy projects that they can do themselves, whether to save on costs or to go along with the independent, off grid power ideology that so many solar energy enthusiasts live by, or simply to have fun with a cool science project!
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Low Maintenance Solar Home Projects
When most people think about solar panels, they assume that they are all projects that use solar panels to provide energy for a device or a power grid. This actually isn’t always the case, as there are plenty of solar projects that have nothing to do with PV panels.
For example, if you are building a home or adding an addition to your house, you should look into considering a passive “sun room.” A sun room is a room that’s designed from the ground up to maximize the heat, light and energy of the sun’s rays to ensure you don’t need to use artificial sources for any of those resources. In fact, it’s possible to build an entire house that is fully optimized to utilize the sun’s rays to drastically reduce energy expenditure.
These solar home design projects take into account the arc of the sun across the sky in ways that most modern architects never even think of. But designing homes to optimize their use of solar energy is nothing new- many indigenous and traditional cultures have been doing this for years to provide light during the day and to minimize heat loss at night!
Solar Panel Projects
Of course, there are also plenty of solar projects you can undertake which use solar panels in inventive ways. Most people are aware of attaching solar panels to the roof of your house to provide energy throughout the day, but most people don’t realize just how flexible home solar panels can be.
More and more people are using solar panels to heat up hot water tanks, to provide energy for laptops and cell phones while they are out and about, and some people are even attaching them to the roof of their cars and campers to provide all the energy they need when they hit the open road. Retrofitting older vehicles and devices for solar energy is not particularly difficult, and can make a fun project for an afternoon or weekend.
Cooking Projects with Solar Energy
Believe it or not, there are plenty of people out there who are cooking with solar energy. I’m not talking about individuals who simply heat their standard electric ovens with solar energy, but people who use solar cookers to make their meals!
What is a solar cooker exactly? It’s a device that’s arranges a series of reflective panels to amplify the heat of the sun’s rays and then to aim them directly at whatever device they’re going to heat and cook their food within.
Most solar cookers are really cheap and easy to make with a little ingenuity- or with the right plan.
There are plenty of weekend projects out there that are fun and interesting and will teach you and your family a lot about the science and technology of solar energy.